Teenage parents are rejecting a National Party plan they say would treat them like children.
Parents at the country's first support centre serving teenage dads as well as mums, which opened last month in Auckland's Mt Albert Community Centre, feel insulted by the plan to pay only "pocket money" in cash to parents on benefits until they turn 19 - one year later than youths who graduate from the independent youth benefit to adult benefits at 18.
National would pay the rest of their existing benefits direct to landlords or via cards that can be used only for food, clothing and transport.
The young people would also have to be in education or training and attend budgeting classes. Parents under 19 would have to be in education or training a year after having a baby and attend parenting classes.
"You are still treating them like kids if you say you have to go and do it," said Alana Pethybridge, a teenage mum whose daughter Ella Maree is already 2.